


Impersonal vengeance

by Wfpetriejnr



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A bit AU maybe, Angst, Be gentle, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, First story, Hannibal the angel of vengeance, M/M, No dogs were hurt in the writing of this fic, No one hurts Will's dogs and gets away with it, Will goes through the emotional wringer a bit, dog lovers beware, sorry if it's terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wfpetriejnr/pseuds/Wfpetriejnr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In therapy, Hannibal has Will recount a terrible memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impersonal vengeance

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is a first time fic (in any fandom) for me :-) 
> 
> I had been wonderfully inspired by the outstanding quality of writing in this fandom and wanted to add to the archive rather than simply lurk (albeit in a passive and loving fashion) and this was the result (I got it up as soon as it was written, tbh I really should be in bed by now)
> 
> Thank you so much for your time...ghost hugs for you all (you can't feel them but they are there)
> 
> There is a short description of an attempted assault - I put that upfront in case its an issue for anyone.
> 
> No beta - mistakes are my own - I don't own Hannibal (sadly)

_They didn’t attribute the death to the Chesapeake Ripper, it seemed too disorderly to be the work of such an organised killer.  The BAU were not called in and the death was dealt with locally.   Just one more strange death in New Orleans.  The woman, and it had taken a while to prove it was indeed a woman, had been tied to a stake in the middle of an abandoned barn, she had been cut carefully but not fatally.  Enough to allow the blood to run.  It appeared from the autopsy, that she had been several good meals for a pack of dogs but when the body was found (alerted by an anonymous call from an unregistered cell) there were no animals at the scene and no clues beyond the bones.  The skull had been missing, assumed carried off by one of the hungrier hounds.  The local police had no leads, no suspects, the farm itself had been too long deserted for the owners to be possibly implicated in the deaths.  They shook their heads and stared at the groaning piles of unsolved cases._

_The death was eventually filed away under unsolved and they moved on._

 

They sat apart, facing each other in that familiar way.

Will never felt adversarial in this setting, the man opposite was powerful and predatory and yet he rarely felt the need to fight him.  It had started strangely, this unveiling of Will Graham.  He had taken a while to get used to the feeling of unburdening, of taking off the sticking plasters that he had messily self-applied to his psyche and allowing Hannibal to apply his own soothing balm.

‘Would you tell me more about the wounds from your past, Will?’  Hannibal stroked the wood of his chair arm with long fingers as he spoke and Will found himself watching its action.  Hannibal’s hands were perfectly manicured, the small white tip rounded and the nails buffed to a dull shine.  He found himself staring at those hands more than was comfortable, fingers strong, skin surprisingly soft.  He had dreamt of those hands, woken aching and gasping as he remembered what he had imagined Hannibal doing with them. 

Now he watched them to avoid the eye contact and with it, the answer that he knew Hannibal wanted.

‘Wounds?  Are not our pasts simply a series of barely healed wounds?’ Will obfuscated, knowing that he had that last story to tell and wanting more than anything to avoid its telling.

Hannibal nodded, his lips pursing in acknowledgement.  ‘Wounds come in many forms, most are just scratches, shallow cuts that cause us a moment of reflection but rarely stop us moving forward.  It is not these that I refer to, which I am sure you are aware.  It is the raw, festering wounds, those that have been seen clearly by people around us, those that cause us to howl in primitive pain.  It is those wounds that we concern ourselves with here, Will.’

Will shifted in his chair, his bag was held to his stomach and he tightened that hold.  He wished Winston were here.  He would bury is face in the dog’s soft fur, its familiar warmth would warm him and make this conversation so much more palatable.

He could barely say her name, the betrayal still so painful, felt leagues deep within him.

‘Gretchen.’ He whispered.  ‘Gretchen Frobisher.’

Hannibal nodded and steepling his hands together, resting his chin lightly on the longer middle fingers.

‘She…um…she ran the kill shelter near the school.’ Will remembered the place.  A 1960’s building, inadequately heated, with damp mouldering the walls and high, small windows.  He had started coming to the shelter when they moved to the town.  His friendless state had not been helped by moving every two or three years.  He had been fifteen when they arrived in the small Louisiana town, too many miles from a river for him to indulge his passion for fishing. 

The shelter had been on his walk home from school.  The first time he had gone in it had been to avoid the small crowd of jocks who had taken it upon themselves to make his life a misery.  Gretchen had not been there that first day, it had been her assistant Amy who had welcomed him in and allowed him time with the animals.  He had taken a shine to a pack of five cross breeds, too old to be easily adopted and too healthy to be immediately considered for euthanasia.

Amy had offered him the chance to volunteer after school and he had jumped at it.  He had been helping out for two months before he met Gretchen.

‘She had come into the shelter for a meeting.’ Will told Hannibal, his teeth bared on the final word.

‘Am I to understand that the ‘meeting’ was to agree which animals would fail to see another sunrise?’ asked Hannibal, his face betraying little.

Will nodded jerkily.  ‘Yeah, that was the only reason she came actually, Amy did everything else.’

‘Do you think she enjoyed it?’

Will laughed but it was entirely without humour.  ‘That she got to play God in her own little puppet theatre?  Fuck, yes.’

Hannibal didn’t flinch at his language but he did tap his chin with his hands before pressing the tips to his lips.

‘What did she do, Will?’

Will took a deep breath and released his strangle hold on his bag.  If he was going to tell the story, there was no point in tensing every muscle in his body whilst he did so.

‘Amy had to go home sick, now I realise it was because she couldn’t cope with being there whilst Gretchen made her decision.  I stayed on later to feed the animals and lock up.  I got to spend a little extra time with the gang when I locked up.’  He smiled as he remembered them.  Casper, the Jack Russell with his whiskery jaw.  Candice, the shy little Poodle cross.  Henry and Tootsie, inseparable friends till the end and finally Fletch, the Collie cross, his favourite and the dog he had decided he would take home.  He had almost had his father convinced to allow it.   He remembered telling Fletch about his plans as he sat cross legged in the cage, petting the animal’s soft head.

‘I thought Gretchen had left but she appeared in front of the cage.  I wasn’t sure how long she had been there, I just looked up and there she was.’   Tall and large boned with dark, almost black hair which she wore lose about her shoulders.  She had taken off her jacket and was wearing a sleeveless blouse and spike heeled shoes.  Her lips were painted a dark, dark red, like the inside of an overripe cherry.  He remembered those lips, and the lipstick that had ended up on her over bright teeth.  He remembered staring at the smear on her central incisor, not sure whether the etiquette was to tell her or just ignore it.

‘She asked me to step into her office.’ Will wasn’t sure how to tell the next part, he wasn’t sure he had the words.

Hannibal saved him the effort. ‘She attempted to kiss you?  Perhaps more?’

Will nodded, ‘Yeah…more…she…well, she tried but I managed to get out of there without…’  He tailed off again. Remembering the press of her long, red painted nails against his cock as she had attempted to unzip him.  He had not been a strong kid and she had been a tall woman but her advantage had been mostly surprise and aggression.   He had spent weeks waking from nightmares of that strong, wet tongue pressing insistently between his lips as he tried to turn away.  Tried desperately to extricate himself without hurting her.   He cleared his throat and shook his head, attempting to clear the memory.  ‘I went back the next day after school, hoping that she would have just forgotten about it.’

He took in a breath and help it then released it slowly.  He hadn’t realised Hannibal had moved until he felt the man’s hand on his shoulder, the warmth of his smallest finger as it touched the skin of his throat.

‘Amy had been crying, that was obvious, but she wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t talk to me.  She just cried when she saw me and ran out the back.  I thought it was because Gretchen had said something.  I wish it had been that.  I think I would have preferred anything to what she had actually done.’

‘She euthanised them?’ Hannibal’s voice was soft, softer than Will had ever heard it. Will looked up at the man, not realising he was crying until Hannibal reached towards his face and lightly brushed his thumb across his cheek. 

‘Yeah.’ Will closed his eyes and took comfort in the caress of Hannibal’s fingers across his cheeks.  ‘That previous night, all five of them, she did it herself and left them in the furnace room for Amy to dispose of.’

‘It was a punishment.’ Hannibal said in a hushed tone.

‘Yeah.  I felt punished.  And then I felt nothing, not for quite some time.’

‘Did you empathise with her Will? Hannibal asked as he crouched by Will’s chair and took his face in those strong, confident hands.

Will shook his head, as violently as he could without dislodging the hands that held him.  ‘I blocked it, I couldn’t… of all the evil acts I have seen since, that was the only one that I could not bring myself to dissect.’

Hannibal leant forwards, his lips pressed lightly against Will’s own.  ‘Do you know what happened to her?’

Will’s brain fogged, the lips against his surprisingly soft and yielding as he leaned into the almost kiss.  His answer was almost unconscious, his wish to concentrate on this new and beautiful development overrode his memories of Gretchen Frobisher.  ‘She still lives in the same town I believe.  Retired now thankfully.’

This time, the tongue that sought entry to his mouth was utterly welcome, the culmination of dream upon dream.  Will felt the memory, the worst from his childhood, being lifted from him and ground to dust by the rightness of Hannibal’s mouth on his. 

He could let it go now. 

He could let it all go so long as Hannibal held him. 

 

_The feasted upon body remained a Jane Doe until a strange thing happened.  A dog was found by the side of the highway.  A collie cross with heterochromatic eyes held in its maw a human jawbone.  After a series of dead ends, the jawbone was eventually identified as that of one Gretchen Frobisher.  No-one had reported her missing, and when they spoke to the few that knew her the police found her to be universally disliked but not to the point that they harboured murderous feelings.  Again, the investigation stalled.  The case remains unsolved._


End file.
